Ben Johnston piece on Composers Concordance!

Hi Group!

On Wednesday, November 13, 2002, 8PM at Washington Square Church, 135
W. 4th St. NYC, the Composers Concordance will be presenting an early
work by Ben Johnston, which promises to be of interest to any of you
living or traveling here this Fall. (Tix only $12, with $7 Tuning
List discount... :)

Here is the program note, which Johnston graciously sent me of late:

"Duo for flute and string bass was composed for Bertram and Nancy
Turetzky in the early 1960's. I was beginning a lifelong research
into the possibilities, microtonal and otherwise, of just intonation
extended well beyond the simple 7-note major scale which that term
originally indicated. The Turetzkys, needing the piece in a hurry,
cautioned me not to expect them to learn such a piece, but expressed
a very active interest in microtones, and a willingness to tackle a
virtuosic demand. I therefore combined techniques (serial, among
others) from the period of my work before that focus of interest, but
this time with pitch bending notated graphically above the notes. The
result, though less systematic than the bulk of my work, greatly
extends the expressive range of pitch usage in the music. It also
strongly implies, aside from notation, that the extended dissonances
of the microtonal "ornaments" should be played off against consonant
intervals, a concept radically different from serialism of the
early '60's." -- B.J.